Looking for writer's prompts or I am stuck, I need an idea

One of the fun things about all the various social networks out there is that a writer can find like minded people to talk about the art and craft of writing. This fall I have found a lot of different places are now putting up writer's prompts in attempted to get content on their pages. They quick often offer either a prize for the winning piece or they might accept your work for an exposure anthology.Now many writers are unsure about submitting anything they write to a website but in the small writers prompts can do a lot for you.

Let us look at this logically. Every writer, every type from poets to epic novelists, will at some point find themselves blocked. Yes, simply getting up and taking a walk can help but what if you can't? Well look around and you will find some helpful person putting up a writing prompt.

This week I spotted one on LinkedIn.  This one has a photo of a gun being fired and the prompt is "the shot" as simple as that. Now as I am still in the middle of getting a novel ready to publish, I am just playing with the prompts and writing flash fictions of various lengths.

If you are a wise author/writer you will play with these prompts, write anything from poems to whole novels if you wish. If you just do a drabble or a flash fiction, well keep them.Even if you don't submit them to the rapidly growing marketplace for flash fiction, you can collect them together and put them out on your own. I am very close to putting out a collection of one hundred drabbles. Yes I wont be charging much for them but like everything you write, these little bits of fiction can build your writers brand.

So try the prompts out. You never know if you are going to write something amazing.

Trying out a new short fiction form

With the advent of people reading on their phones and tablets there has been a rise in the shorter forms of fiction. As a writer of short fiction I have of course delved into these forms. I have written many drabbles and quickie short fictions. Enough to make collections after all.

Well now I plan on playing in the form of a dribble. You all know that a drabble is a 100 word fiction, well a dribble is a 50 word fiction. Exactly 50.  So far I have only two of them but here they are. They are a very fast write and a great way to express a scene.

Lady of Blood

By Lisa Williamson

I stand, waiting for him to come. Dressed in the finest of satin and lace, my gown dipped in the blood of his enemies and the ashes of their homes. It has made patterns, lovely upon the train that spreads behind me. I am the bride of the lord Blood.

And this one

Snow magic

By Lisa Williamson

Do you see me standing here? White is my coat, dappled with spots like shadows. The snow about me, covering the ground and the trees, is a simple shad different than I. The frosty environment that surrounds me hides my majesty. Can you see me? You can if you try.

Short and hopefully to the point. A fun ting to do when you need to write but just don't feel up to a longer piece. Hopefully I can do lots of these and put together a collection like I am doing with the others.

The importance of remembering where you posted your work

As a long time scribbler yet only short term published author I have had the fun and joy of trying to remember where I might have posted my work while it was in the stages of being finished. The last place that I remembered I had posted things was over on the erotica site, Literotica. (Yes i write erotica too). Now I had a small following over there with people bugging me from time to time to complete some of the partial stories I posted up here.

For the longest time I forgot that I had work up there. Now I am doing my best to pull those stories down so that i can complete them and of course publish them. Let me tell you this is not as simple as hitting the remove or delete key. It is a bit of a pain in fact.

You see the moderators over there seem to be none existent. I have emailed them multiple times requesting they remove titles or even delete my account with no response in the past TWO YEARS! I have managed to remove titles from the site by submitting the title with revised in it and a note in the body that it is being removed for publication. It takes up to a week but they do pull them down.

For the one or two at a shot it is not so bad but when I have 17 chapters of one title and six more chapters on two other titles, that is a lot of work and annoying.

Folks you better remember this when you post. The work you put up is yours but you have to fight to keep them in your hands. In this world of writing and publishing things change on a daily purpose. From getting signed to a small publisher that seems to disappear from one day to the next, to deciding to rewrite a work that you thought you were done with over a decade ago, you will need to find work arounds.

So do your best to keep your work in your hands. If you decide to post on free sites make sure you can remove things easily and quickly. And never post the complete work if there is a chance that you can sell it later.  Take it from the mad writer, you will regret it.

Combining two art forms to make something beautiful

Okay I don't think of myself as all that good at either poetry or photography, but when I combine the two I have some lovely pieces.

I only just discovered these way of displaying my words and images together this summer. Firstly I have of course been taking photos of flowers and nature since I was a child. I know I have a good eye,but I was never sure what I could do to display them.

Well I decided that I would play around with some of the shorter poetry forms and while these are the the worlds deepest poems, they are pleasant and soothing in many cases. Crossing them with some of my better images was just a logical step.

I started with the acrostic and cinquian poems I wrote. You can look up what those styles are and you will see that they make a perfect set of words for a photo poem.  Here are the three cinquain that I wrote and then played with:

As you can see, a simple form that easily rests on top of the images I have. The form is one, two, three, four, one...simple form but surprisingly difficult to write something touching.

Next we have the four Acrostic poems I wrote:

Again a fun project. Acrostic poems spell out a word on the vertical. And can be as little as two lines all the way up to whatever, I guess. I found went i was cropping and resizing the images that I had that lovely close up of a bee.

Finally I have just today been playing with some of my haiku. I have a lot more of those poems, so I will be putting them up in the following weeks but here is a brief example:

All of the photos you see were taken with a simple and cheap digital camera. No fancy phone camera, no high end expensive equipment. Just my eye and the built in zoom on the camera. I don't spend a lot of time in framing my images, I just see something I want to photograph and I frame it up. Simple images, a good eye and a little patience...oh yes..and an open and willing heart.

Another thing I have started on is doing poems for old photographs. You know those wonderful black and white (or sepia) photos that we all have stashed away someplace. I decided to us for my first stab at this a beautiful photo of my mother when she was sixteen. That would make the photo from 1956. My mom was still a sweet and innocent girl here. Life had yet to defeat dreams (I think)

I know this is harder to read but it is delicate, like my mom. I only have this one done so far but I hope to do many more, if I can get the old photos from my mother.

And finally I have one free verse poem I did:

Not as good as the others but I will work these out. My nature free verses I think will work that best with my photos. Only time will tell.